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Dorms:
In general all of the dormitories have study rooms. Whether they're
effective or not is an entirely dependent on the physical structure, RA
(resident advisor) policy, and capacity of such rooms. All of the
dorms
have regulations on how much noise a resident can create, and if it
excessive at any time, or noise permeates outside of your room during
"quiet
hours", a RA will probably come down and ask the offender to stop.
What
constitutes as "excessive" is entirely dependent on building due to
physical
structure. The RA only has access to walk in the public areas and
halls so
if the noise does not penetrate to those areas, they won't hear it.
They
will, however, answer to all complaints, and sometimes they can be
somewhat
oppressive. I would also refer you to the UW housing brochure - if I
remember correctly they have a list of official 'features' of each
dormitory, which is relatively true, but I will go into detail of what
they
don't include in there (which you should keep in mind because they
really
only advertise the upside to things, not the downside).

All of the resident halls should be equipped with 10-BaseT Ethernet
ports,
so you should bring a computer with a network card/port. This is about
the
fastest internet you will probably see for a long time (and free as
well).
If you live outside of the UW dorms, internet, of course, is not free,
and
you will have to arrange your own connection. I believe that at this
time,
there is a private apartment building that is managed by UW is now
equipped
with Ethernet, but they do not fall under UW dorm regulations (only
under UW
housing regulations) as they are essentially private apartments, only
*managed* by UW. I forgot the name, but you may want to inquire about
the
"apartment building between Schmitz Hall and Terry/Lander".

Regarding social life, it really depends on the people obviously, but I
will
characterize the social potential based on the # of people you will
interact
with on a normal basis.

I will give each hall a nickname, as to picture which halls best fit
you.

Haggett Hall [Frango Box] - rooms are hexagonal, quite unique for this
building. Each floor has a limited set of these hexagonal rooms, and
is
generally quiet. Each floor has about 3 rooms each side per division,
so
about 6 rooms total with about 12 occupants per division. There may be
3-4
divisions per floor. Generally, I believe this is one of the least
dense
halls. Social life is moderately active as you interact with about
15-20
people on this floor. Bathrooms are shared by all members of the
division.
At the time I was there, floors can be co-ed, but each division was
generally same sex.

Haggett Hall and McMahon Hall have shared basements which is also the
cafeteria dining area. The cafeteria in this area is fairly huge with
large
group conference rooms in each, and is one of my favorite places to eat
when
I have classes nearby this area.

McMahon Hall [Cluster] - double-rooms are fairly small but a unique
advantage to this hall is that 4 rooms form a private cluster with a
small
common meeting lounge area. Consider this a "5th" room, where you can
put a
fridge, tables, etc here. The noise is limited to whatever your
clustermates' output, and generally you will interact with your
clustermates
the most often. There are 3-4 rooms (with 2 people in it) per cluster,
totaling 6-8. Bathrooms are shared by people per cluster, and is
locked
within your own cluster, so it's the most 'private' bathroom
arrangement.
Members within the same clusters are same-sex. However a floor, which
can
contain 6-10 clusters, are effectively co-ed if you count across
clusters.
Terry Hall [Socialite Haven] - typical dorm hall, essentially a row of
10-20
rooms on each side. The noise can be noisy due to the sheer number of
people. There are, however, designated silent areas in the basement
where
it's usually a decent place. I stayed in Terry Hall for 3 years, and
had
problems with noise with next-door tenants (smoking hall, usually the
most
rowdy), but when I moved to a different floor, the entire floor was
relatively silent (except weekends). However, Terry Hall offers one of
the
largest double-rooms any dorm can offer, and has a great social life.
Typically there are about 10 rooms each side, totaling 20 rooms. About
40
people per floor, but the dorm is essentially segregated to two floors
(with
a public meeting room and stairwell that joins two floors) so you can
have
up to 60-80 people to hang out with on a normal basis from these two
floors.
Most of the RAs have a reputation of taking advantage of this and
schedule
many group outings or activities which work out fine (for instance, my
RA
[who is an outdoorsman] scheduled a REI campout to camp the REI store
for 24
hours to wait for their used sale where you can buy almost anything at
90%
off). The duo-floor is conveniently arranged so that one floor has all
males, the other floor has all females. This building has 11 floors,
and
with the exception of the 1st floor (reserved for people with
accessibility
requirements), the duo-floors are grouped as is: 2-3, 4-5, 6-7.. etc.
Generally the even floors are female, and odd floors are male.
Bathrooms
are shared among all occupants on a floor and is the largest set, but
you
should get used to sharing the same shower / bathroom with 20-30
others.
The showers/bathrooms for women require a key, something you may want
to get
used to.

Terry Hall and Lander Hall share basement floors and also has a common
dining area. Cafeteria is medium-sized and is not as nice in terms of
size
as McMahon-Haggett, but I found no problems with it.

Lander Hall [Barracks] have these really small doorways, and tend to
cram
people in small rooms. However, the hallway space is fairly big.
Lander
Hall is essentially like Terry Hall except smaller and older (Terry
Hall is
one of the more recent build dorms).
East/West Mercer Hall [Dungeon] - really old, really cramped, and the
smallest rooms/closets you can find on earth. My best friend lived
here for
a year before wising up and rooming with me in Terry Hall and then
Steven's
Court. The walls are all brick (and hot during sunny days), and the
hallways are dark and stuffy, something you'd see in a horror movie.
There
are no dining facilities, and students must walk two blocks to
Terry/Lander
to get food. The advantage is that this dorm is virtually silent,
possibly
due to the lack of anything that encourages social interaction.

Hansee Hall - these are essentially single private rooms (unless they
changed resident arrangements, which is not surprising due to
overcrowding)
When I was there, this hall had 24-hour silent rules, meaning it is
supposed
to be quiet all the time regardless of the time of day and day of the
week.
Generally, 2nd year or older students live here as it is ideal for
straight-shooter studiers..

Stevens Court - resident apartments, they fall under the UW housing
system
and is generally reserved for 2nd year+ students. First-come,
first-serve.
I lived here in my 4th and 5th year and it was great. They're
essentially 4
room apartments with a kitchen, bathroom, and everything else you'd
expect
in a typical apartment. You may choose to have a meal plan or not
(kitchen). Since this is an apartment and not dormitory, I would
highly
encourage looking into this, and compare price rates. The price hike
is not
too bad either. Noise/social life is generally independent on the
person as
these are 4 person apartments.

2040 House - refer to the brochure, I am not 100% sure what this house
was
for but I believe it's a house for about 20 students and is possibly
used
for only study-attuned folk.

> Dorms:

> Which dorms are the quiet study dorms?
Although I have not lived in all of them, I would assume that the
quietest
(quiet-loud)would rank like this:
Hansee >> 2040 House >> Mercer Hall >> Haggett >> Steven's Court >>
McMahon
>> Lander >> Terry

> What are the pros, cons and prices of each?
(see above descriptions)

> Are there are honors dorms? If so how do they compare?
(possibly 2040 House, I believe this house is reserved for those with a
common interest, and that may be in a particular field of study, so it
may
be honor-oriented)
There are no "honors dorms" as anyone can apply to any dorm, however
you
typically find the most studious persons in Hansee because they're
generally
single rooms with older students. If you're a person that likes a mix
of
interaction but wants a controlled study environment, then I suggest
McMahon, Terry, and Steven's Court.

> Is the internet and cable in the dorms free? > If not, how much is
it?
All dorms by 2004 should have free Ethernet 10base-T ports. You would
be
wise to take advantage of this. UW is one of the leading Ethernet /
internet research facilities in the world (in part due to Microsoft),
with
World Wide Web 2 experiments under way, so it would be a joke for them
to
not support Ethernet for students.

Thank you so much for the comments! you have no idea how much that helped me! do you know if theres room for everyone to live in dorms all 4 years at UW? And how common is that vs. renting an apartment?

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